This story has been updated.
They’re going for the wholesale workaround.
San Diego lawmakers are pushing new legislation to protect the Midway Rising project from environmental lawsuits. It is a new, separate push from the one that would protect it and other projects around the state from lawsuits challenging the adequacy of their analyses of impacts from taller buildings.
The Midway Rising plan involves a 16,0000-seat arena and roughly 4,250 housing units.
Under the new proposal, the city’s own study of the project’s environmental impacts would be enough to meet requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act, according to proposed amendments of the bill obtained by Voice of San Diego.
A public hearing on the bill — which amended previously unrelated legislation about human remains — is expected to take place later this week. Lead author Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson could not be immediately reached for comment.
Assemblymember Chris Ward, who’s a co-author on the bill, said lawmakers are introducing the bill now after facing roadbacks locally.
“We’ve had years of public conversation around trying to do something good for the sports arena, for community development in that area,” Ward said. “And to any extent that I feel the public process has been over-exhausted and abused, we have a chance to step in here and help to guide what it’s going to be.”
Solana Beach Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, who also represents parts of the Midway District, said she was still reviewing the bill and declined to answer questions about the proposal.
Officials had previously said Senate Bill 958 was the primary legislation to help avoid further litigation that could cause lengthy delays.
Senate co-author Steve Padilla declined to answer any questions about the project.
Democrats Assemblymember David Alvarez and Sen. Catherine Blakespear said they will likely support the new changes.
“Generally, I’m supportive of CEQA reform,” Republican Sen. Brian Jones said, and that he’s also still reviewing the bill.
There’s precedence for developers working with state lawmakers to cut red tape for stadium projects. In 2013, legislators pulled a similar maneuver to help speed up the CEQA permitting process for the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.
Zack Defazio-Farrell, treasurer and law policy member for San Diego County YIMBY Democrats, said the last-minute proposal makes sense if the goal is to “CEQA-proof” Midway Rising.
“In theory, if it ends up being a blanket CEQA exemption for a specific project, it’s been done before,” Defazio-Farrell said, adding that he had not yet seen the bill language. “It should basically insulate the project from CEQA litigation.”
Correction: This story previously stated that the Midway Rising project would receive an exemption from CEQA, California’s landmark environmental law. It doesn’t receive an exemption from CEQA. Instead, the bill would shield the project from future CEQA lawsuits.
The environment doesn’t matter when there are lots of yet-to-be-collected tax dollars that the politicians are in a hurry to waste.
Well Chris… I doubt you’ll ever be stuck in the gridlock created by Midway Sinking.
A wholesale CEQA exemption is the kind of thing that gets justified by the merits of one project and then outlives it by twenty years. The specific question worth pressing is what review remains for traffic and flood risk on that site once the exemption applies, because the Midway area’s drainage constraints are not hypothetical. It would also be useful to see reporting on how comparable exemptions elsewhere in the state have performed against the housing numbers promised at the time — that comparison is the only way voters can judge whether the trade actually delivers.
To believe CEQA has been used to the benefit of anything other than NIMBYs is laughable.
So if a project is big enough it can skirt review? Shouldnt that be the ones that definately need it as would have the biggest impacts.im all for speeding up the process and stopping continued lawsuits but not exemption from reviewing impacts
Recent king tides have been videoed with water rising up through the street layer.
SB958 is now SB344. Chris Ward’s public process being over exhausted is hogwash with this run around a judges decision for a bad city environmental review.